Interview with Fine Art Landscape photographer Michel Rajkovic

There are places that carry you, lights that you freeze and moods that you fill emotions. It is through a long period of research and location scouting that his work begins. Michel Rajkovic does not try to capture the landscape as we perceive it. On the contrary, patiently, with long exposure technics, he invites the time and chance to bring their size. Giving great care to each composition, taking the necessary time to research and obtain the best conditions for the shooting: time, light framing …

In these moments, forgotten the times of sightings, Michel Rajkovic just tries to share the emotion he felt: a dream in the the middle of Nowhere.

How and when did you become interested in photography?

I wanted to do photography since childhood but it cost a lot. So I started to be very interested and to practice only in the 2000s and I became professional in 2007.

Is there any artist/photographer who inspired your art?

At first I was interested in color photography and it’s the work of Alain Etchepare and Xavier Rey that led me to black and white. Later I discovered the work of a lot of photographer which Michael Kenna, Olaf otto Becker, Shoji Ueda

Why do you work in black and white rather than colour?

The goal of my work is to escape from the reality, that’s why I work in B&W and only with long exposure technic. I see my images like a door to an imaginary world

How much preparation do you put into taking a photograph/series of photographs?

First there’s a lot of preparation to find interesting places with a mood before the journey. Most of my images are created mentally, I imagine the light I would like to have and I frame the image. The difficulty is then to coincide my imagination with reality. On places it can be long to wait the right light and a special mood. I don’t manipulate my images, if the light or the sky is not good, I will come back.

Fot the technical part, I shoot long exposure with nd1000 filters in digital raw format and convert it in b&w. It can take many weeks and sometimes month before I can be satisfied.

Where is your photography going? What projects would you like to accomplish?

I have many images I need to develop from old trips. And I plan to exhibit my series in France and Europe in 2015 and 2016.

Website: www.michelrajkovic.fr